Jove
by braunschweiger
Summary: College AU; oneshot; AmeriBela, pinch of FACE, little sliver of CanUkr; She left. She returned. Everything is a definite maybe. Completely and totally inspired by "Drops of Jupiter" by Train.


_Hey, look! I wrote a whole shit-load of words! I'm sorry that like, 2% of this is dialogue but I guess it turns out that I like writing huge allegorical paragraphs to match every 3 words of sarcasm I write. _

_Just a quick warning, apparently I like the word "fuck" a lot._

_And shucks, format's wonky again. I'll figure out how to fix this someday, promise._

_Finally, I super duper suck at keeping consistent with tenses and I've just given up on trying to improve on that. Hopefully it's not unbearable. :)_

_This took forever to write. I hope it's worth it. _

_Enjoy! _

He wasn't hard to find, like he was always never hard to find. Draped across the short cliff of a roof outside his bedroom window, staring up, as he always had. She couldn't begin to think about counting the times she had been fitted against him on that very slab of shingles, her speaking of something, obviously not important enough to remember when she would find that he wasn't listening. He was never listening. He was staring, up at the northern abyss of nothing for her, for the average, but _everything _for him._  
"_Did you know that the Milky Way galaxy is moving at about the speed 300 miles per hour through space? At this very instant we are hurtling through an ever expanding universe at the speed German cars aren't even capable of."_  
_She would sigh, perpetually irritated with his seemly always absent listening skills, but curled into him tighter anyways._  
"_No, Alfred, I didn't."_  
"_Cool, huh?"_  
_His voice would be distant and wistful, as if he wasn't actually on the very planet he sat on. No, he was _light years _away. He was always light years away; his body on Earth with his girlfriend sitting on a roof outside of the MIT campus, but his mind- oh his _mind _was up there ablaze with Sirius, burning at 9,940 Kelvin. Did you know Sirius burned at 9,940 Kelvin? Natalia sure as hell didn't before she met Alfred._  
_She sure as hell did now._  
_The girl stood in front of the raggedy house she had stormed out of not a year ago and breathed. It had been painted since she saw it last, previously a jovial sun yellow (Alfred had compared it more to the color of piss) but now a sort of gray-blue, like the ominous rolling clouds of pounding storms or the sunken eye bags that resided upon her own face. The golden leaves of Cambridge littered the dead front lawn and the little white porch was tipped with silver frost. _  
_Where right about now she had suspected her thoughts would be racing, they were AWOL. It was her legs, God bless 'em, that carried her up those squeaky four steps; her arms that reached up to touch the paint chipped door. _  
_The brain of Natalia Arlovskaya was about the consistency of jelly._  
_And when her hand knocked on the door, Francis was the one to answer._  
_Her former French classmate looked impossibly older than he had before, with a dusting of golden hairs across his chin and light ash hair pulled back in what she could only assume was an effort to further fulfill his nationality stereotype down to a tee. Francis and herself had both been studying English at Harvard, and Natalia unfortunately had become rather close with the man who during lectures wrote his notes in French, which was widely believed to be out of spite for the own language he was studying. Although through the years of their acquaintance she could have almost called Francis a friend at one point in time. She had learned of his almost fatherly instincts toward the three roommates who had become his brothers. She learned of his gentle and forgiving ways, his loving kid in every mockery he poked at his friends and strangers. The way how it seemed you could tie the man to a chair, cut his treasured tresses, and stab him a million times over and the smile wouldn't leave his face until you turned to his family in which then you would find yourself gutted from the inside out before you realized he had escaped the chair._  
_The man that stood in front of her looked at her in dumbfounded shock, until his features shifted sour and revolted, until finally settling to a mask of mild warmth fit with a stale smile._  
"_Natalia, wow, long time no see."_  
_Natalia had developed the skill to tell if the French melody of his voice was really as welcoming as he portrayed it, or if it was actually laced with venom from the vipers that roamed his homeland. _  
_She had a lot of poison to suck out of the wound. _  
"_Good evening, Francis. Is Alfred upstairs? I just wanted to talk-"_  
_She stopped when he shifted, leaning a little more into the doorway and bracing his shoulders into the small frame in what was most definitely an elegant and subtle gesture of 'no',_  
Hell, no.  
"_Dear, I don't-"_  
"_Francis, you bloody arse do you realize the fucking temperature it is outside- oh." _  
_Arthur halted just above Francis' shoulder, clearly not willing to venture any further towards the cold and the ice girl that held it. _  
_The Englishman, known much more for his tact than his French companion, watched the Belarusian rooted to his porch with as much emotion as a dead man. But his eyes, oh they shared a different tale. They were the color of emerald fields, so like the ones that bathed the nation from which he hailed, and they held simply nothing more and nothing less than judgement._  
_Frozen, unforgiving judgement. _  
_The defendant felt as though all she could do would be to glare back. _  
_The (incessantly screaming, if she did say so herself) thoughts of turning back and ignoring the disaster she had created with her own beautifully accented Russian words had been stabbed and twisted the second Boston air had once again flowed into her lungs, almost as excruciating as the first breath she had taken in this two faced city of the remembered and the unborn, of the intelligence she had shipped across the planet for, and of the affair she had found herself wrapped into after the closing bell had rung._  
_So she stood, as Arthur turned to the taller of the two with a look of questioning and confusion, and if Natalia was as good as she insisted she was, strong undertones of firm disapproval. _  
"_Francis, what is going on?" Arthur asked slowly, almost in a drawl, as his eyes fluttered between Natalia who glared daggers through the blond's own head, and Francis who watched the girl with what looked like a terrible attempt at indifference. _  
"_I could ask the same," the man replied, oceanic eyes refusing to move from where they were trained. _  
_Natalia took an involuntary gulp of air. "Alright, I realize you both aren't very... _pleased _with me," Francis chuckled, Arthur scowled. "But please, if you would just let me talk with him for a few-"_  
"_No such thing will ever happen, love, so I suggest you have a good night," just as Francis had begun to lean forward and close the door, Natalia's feet took a step forward preventing the such action. _  
_The girl, battling the panic surging through her body, turned her attention from the uncooperative man that was still posed to slam the door shut to his across-the-Channel counterpart. _  
"_Arthur," his eyes widened a little from being addressed, clearly still in a daze over the reappearance of a girl whose face was never supposed to be seen in the Western Hemisphere again._  
"_Arthur, please. _Please, _you know me. You know him. You know what happened, I know you do. What I did was wrong and I just have to tell him that, please. Arthur, he's your best friend- just, just let me tell him I fucked up, okay? That's all I want to do. Please, _please just let me talk to him_," Natalia's gaze fell from Arthur's own and onto the porch below. _  
_Everything that had been spilled hung suspended, crowding the air. Two out of three held their breath. _  
_Arthur's eyes floated on Natalia for what felt like both an eternity and no time at all before drifting to Francis, where they comfortably settled. _  
"_You know where he is."_  
_Shoulders brushed and protests were stuttered but the iced second floor was much too seductive for Natalia to stop, as much as the entire human race wanted her to. _  
_There are steps. _  
_Step two creeks._  
_Step six still has a dent. _  
_Step eleven has a raised nai- oh. Not anymore._  
_There are twelve steps. _  
_Of course she knows where he is, don't take her for a fool. Left at the landing takes you to the European rooms, so she turns right. The first door is the bathroom (somewhere a vine of thought wonders if he still has extra toothpaste and Midol in there for her, just in case) so she continues on, not sure if her steps are becoming smaller to the approaching door or if they're just slower. _  
_She thinks that doesn't make sense. _  
_She doesn't know why she's thinking about this._  
_The second door is wide agape, coating this section of hallway with a virused chill enough to make the girl from frozen Belarus hiss. _  
_Natalia enters his room numbly, guiding herself along the rearranged furniture and empty looseleaf. Opposite from where she hovers sits an ajar window with a shadow laying upon the ledge outside it. _  
_Steps are taken, shivers are shuttered. An arm finds itself on the outside. A head of sterling hair. _  
_Natalia swallows. It shatters everything._  
"_Hello, Alfred."_  
_It's a croak, not a whisper. The wind whips. _  
"_I saw you the second you stepped out of London over there," Alfred points lazily to his right where her little blue car does indeed sit, before his hand flops back down onto the shingles again._  
_The girl, who was once told she was the most beautiful girl in existence, takes that as indication that she will continue to breathe for at least a few more seconds and drops her entire form on the slate. The boy is laying just on the border between shingles and eternal sleep; the girl gathers herself flat against the gray shingles. _  
_Ominous rolling clouds of pounding storms._  
_Her face sets and never changes from the generic and bored expression which she would make damn sure stayed fixed on her features, but she had to fight to remove the clumsy chuckle in her breath when she commented, "You remember what you named my car?"_  
_His look of indifference obviously wasn't as important as her own, as a loose smirk slipped onto his lips. The two had yet to make eye contact. _  
"_Of course. To get Arthur riled up, if nothing else."_  
_The world fell mute. _  
"_So," Alfred stared at the yard in front of him but the desperate alarm in his voice shined like a lightning bug. He could never stand void air, could he? "How are you?" _  
_Oh gosh, there were so many options. She could go with a nice lie, _"I'm wonderful, Alfred. And you?" _Those were always pleasant and easy! What about generic? _"I've been better, but overall fine, thank you!" _Going with a, _"I'm super fucking shitty right now, thanks for asking," _would be such a downer, definitely not appropriate right now. So many choices, how could she ever choose?_  
"_I'm okay."_  
_Wow, Natalia. Original._  
_He nods, as if her mental discourse was heard instead of the two word spoken response._  
_Silence blankets. _  
"_So you're back."_  
_Natalia wants to say _"Apparently," _but it's not a question. _  
"_Sure," she says instead. _  
"_So... are you here for the semester, or...? Then, what? Are you going home, are you staying here...?" Alfred trailed off, as if he wasn't committed enough to use breath to finish the question which he in turn didn't give a rats ass about the answer to. He probably didn't. _  
_She sighed, which was more of a huff, before scooting forward and removing her legs from under her so that they were dangling off the edge of the roof. He wasn't in her line of sight anymore. Perfect. _  
"_I don't know. I guess I'm going to get my degree and then find out. There are some things in California that kind of caught my eye, but it's an English degree, so it's not like I'm going to have to go all the way down to Flo-" Oh, _fuck.  
_She didn't move, not daring to even move her eyes from the blade of grass she had them trained on. There was no reaction to be gauged from the other side of the roof from feeling alone, but then again, the Belarusian's muscles were held so tight, she couldn't feel her own ass. _  
_Natalia wondered if he honestly didn't care and was just trying to do what he was always so good at: keeping the awkwardness away but drifting off from the word 'I'._  
_Silence filled the night. A car alarm wailed in the distance._  
"_Our siblings are engaged."_  
_The girl nodded, what could be called a pathetic excuse for a smile drifted on her features. _  
"_They are." _  
"_Wedding's going to be all the way in Ottawa, though. Like, Mattie's entire family in centered around Boston and New York right now, and Ivan's just a hop, skip, and a jump over in D.C., and you're here right now," he silenced a bit at the last five words, but picked up speed once again like they had never been spoken, "and sure he might be Canadian but Kat's Ukrainian so that argument makes no sense. I just don't see why I'm going to have to fulfill my best man duties 400 some miles away and why he can't just freaking come down to Boston, get hitched, and tail it back to Ottawa."_  
_Alfred gasped, shocked and out of breath from his emotioned outburst. His head hung and he spread his pale hands, sighing._  
"_It's just," he begun with a whisper, barely audible. "Everybody's leaving, you know?"_  
Yes_, but like hell she was going to tell him that. _  
_She readjusted her legs below her and cleared her throat, a sound oddly deafening._  
_Minutes passed. Or maybe hours. Who knows? The fuzz that pounded in Natalia's ears and increased a couple decibels within the last spoken word, if that was an indicator. Do sound and time have direct correlation? Alfred would probably know._  
"_Natalia," his voice soft, weary and worn, "why are you here?"_  
_God, that was an excellent question._  
_She knew full well she should have left 10 minutes ago. She knew full well she should have never come. She knew full well she should have never left his side a year ago. She knew, Goddammit she _knew_, she should have never answered the fucking question._  
"_I met a man in Copenhagen; blonde hair, blue eyes. Spoke Russian just beautiful enough to mask his poisonous arrogance. We were Australia, on the beach, and he asked me what I was running from. And you know what I told him?"_  
_Alfred watched her, but didn't move an inch. _  
"_I told him that I had fallen in love with a man who," she swallowed and sighed, "who would always love Cassiopeia more."_  
_Alfred felt hands tighten around his throat. Natalia felt the hands be removed from her own. _  
_The boy next to her inhaled, strong despite its contents._  
"_Did you ever miss me?"_  
Yes.  
"_Never."_  
_He nodded, confirmation of what he already knew. _  
"_Do you ever think..." his tone trailed, like he no longer had the energy to complete his own questions. Questions he knew he would never know the answers to. Questions he had always known the answers to. _  
"_Maybe."_  
_She never needed to know the question to know the answer._  
_The girl felt herself rise from the beaten platform, suddenly engulfed with a feeling, a feeling unknown. Satisfaction? No. Not fulfillment. Certainly not peace. Of closure? Maybe. _  
_Maybe, that's what she felt. Maybe._  
"_You know," Natalia turned with one leg out the window and arm already poised to haul her figure off the thick-aired ledge. A duet of European whispers sounded outside the wooden bedroom door._  
"_I've danced on white sand in South Africa, and I've seen the sunset from Barcelona, and I've eaten crickets- fucking _crickets_, Alfred- in Thailand. Do you know how, how _unbelievable _each of those experiences were? Do you know what people would give to see the things I've seen, to do the things I've done?" _  
_She stops, softens (what an incredibly rare sight on a girl of titanium). Alfred inhales._  
"_The thing is, what I'll be thinking about when I'm pressed against my coffin pillows won't be any of my cheap tourist trips. No, it will be about looking at burning balls of gas on a roof of a shitty student house with a boy who wouldn't even look at me."_  
_He turns for the first time and she sees his eyes._  
_She wants to run; the window is in her way. Instead the gaze is dropped and foot number two makes landfall on the floor._  
"_Natalia."_  
_He watches her, she watches her foot. _  
"_Would it be ultra cliché to say that you look beautiful tonight?"_  
_The frown cracks and she feels like she never traveled the world without him, never left him to start._  
"_Goodnight, Alfred."_  
"'_Night." _  
_The sky is clear.

_Tell me, did the wind sweep you off your feet,_  
_Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day,_  
_And head back to the Milky Way?_  
_And tell me, did Venus blow your mind,_  
_Was it everything you wanted to find,_  
_And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?_

Where that dash of DenmarkBelarus came from I have no idea. Is it even a real pairing?

I also think I invented a couple words in this. I'm a modern Shakespeare!

Okay, I'm done talking.

Thanks for reading!


End file.
